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We'll be releasing a few new features in the near future that will change existing behaviour, so wanted to call out the changes to help avoid any questions that might come up. The FAQ will be updated once the punishments go live, and if there are any further questions then the forum is the best place for those! The first is mumble verification and cooldown which is currently in testing (and being deployed today, but without the punishments), and we hope to release in the next few days all being well. Mumble-required lobbies are suffering at the moment as people don't join mumble, and the first set of changes we'll be deploying will aim to combat this.

Mumble Verification

This is a simple check to ensure you have mumble installed and are able to connect to TF2Center's mumble server. This check must be completed once per player, and at time of release we will back-populate the data so if you've joined before, you won't need to again. If you've not joined, the verification is a 2-step process (join mumble, click button in TF2C) and should be relatively painless!

Mumble Cooldown

If a player is not in mumble for the majority of a mumble-required game, they will enter a cooldown period during which they cannot join mumble-required lobbies. The punishment levels are tiered so multiple occurrences will result in longer punishment times, but playing multiple (currently 5) consecutive mumble-required lobbies and joining mumble in each will lower the punishment level by 1. These bans will only apply to mumble-required lobbies.

Substitutes will also be subject to this new behaviour, although only if they are in the game for at least 5 minutes.

The currently defined punishment periods are as follows, but please note that these are subject to change while we watch and tweak the service (especially in the first few days):

Level 0 - 30 minutes

Level 1 - 60 minutes

Level 2 - 4 hours

Level 3 - 12 hours

Level 4 - 2 days

Level 5+ - 7 days

This may be better explained with an example:

Player starts at mumble punishment level 0

Player joins mumble-required lobby but doesn't join mumble

End of game, player is banned from mumble-required lobbies for 30 minutes, and mumble punishment level is increased by 1 (to 1)

30 minutes passes

Player joins mumble-required lobby but doesn't join mumble

End of game, player is banned from mumble-required lobbies for 1 hour and mumble punishment level is increased by 1 (to 2)

1 hour passes

Player plays 5 mumble-required lobbies and joins mumble in each

Player punishment level is reduced by 1 (to 1)

As stated above, this change is in testing for a short time while we iron out any kinks. We'll follow up this post once the changes go live.

TF2Center is a free service, offered so that users like yourselves can enjoy playing semi-competitive games in a friendly environment. Players are expected to be respectful towards other users and staff, and any attempts to deliberately disrupt or ruin the gaming experience of others is not welcome. Players are also expected to follow any specific lobby rules in place, such as joining mumble in mumble-required games.

While this is an adult and competitive environment, and a certain amount of swearing and "trash talk" is expected, persistent or excessive abuse or discrimination is strictly not tolerated.

Leading a lobby by providing a server is a privilege that we appreciate, but this does not give you the right to abuse the powers that come with this. Please be mindful that players invest time when waiting to participate in a game, and do not take it kindly when this time is wasted.

Players are encouraged to follow the spirit of these rules and do what you can to ensure that all players have an enjoyable time. Players seen to be going against these rules can be reported on our forums, and each incident will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

Similarly, appeals against bans can be made on the forums. In the interest of fairness we try to ensure a different staff member handles a ban request and an appeal request but this may not always be the case. Attempts to discuss ban or appeal requests directly with any staff member may be ignored. Attempts to argue bans in main chat will be dealt with harshly.

As you may have seen, we have added Mumbility recently to track players who do not join Mumble-required lobbies. We have always had the intention to introduce cool down periods for players who repeatedly do not join Mumble.

From today, players who do not join Mumble will have bans applied to their account based on these recently implemented cool downs.

Even without these bans, since introducing Mumble tracking, we have noticed more people in Mumble than ever before. Adding these punishments for those who continue to ruin other peoples games by not participating and communicating should further help and improve the quality of these games.

Mumble Cooldown

If a player is not in Mumble for the majority of a Mumble-required game, they will enter a cooldown period during which they cannot join Mumble-required lobbies. The punishment levels are tiered so multiple occurrences will result in longer punishment times, but playing multiple (currently 5) consecutive Mumble-required lobbies and joining Mumble in each will lower the punishment level by 1. These bans will only apply to mumble-required lobbies.

Substitutes will also be subject to this new behaviour, although only if they are in the game for at least 5 minutes.

The currently defined punishment periods are as follows, but please note that these are subject to change while we watch and tweak the service (especially in the first few days):

Level 0 - 30 minutes

Level 1 - 60 minutes

Level 2 - 4 hours

Level 3 - 12 hours

Level 4 - 2 days

Level 5+ - 7 days

This may be better explained with an example:

Player starts at Mumble punishment level 0

Player joins Mumble-required lobby but doesn't join Mumble

End of game, player is banned from Mumble-required lobbies for 30 minutes, and Mumble punishment level is increased by 1 (to 1)

30 minutes passes

Player joins Mumble-required lobby but doesn't join Mumble

End of game, player is banned from Mumble-required lobbies for 1 hour and Mumble punishment level is increased by 1 (to 2)

1 hour passes

Player plays 5 Mumble-required lobbies and joins Mumble in each

Player punishment level is reduced by 1 (to 1)

The players Mumble cooldown level is present on the Lobby page (for spectators only) and their Profile page.

FAQ:

What is Mumbility?

Mumbility tracks players who do not join Mumble-required lobbies. We use different cool down levels to find players who ruin the experience for other users by not joining Mumble and contributing to the game by communicating.

What are Mumbility cool downs?

Mumbility levels displayed on your profile page translates into bans if you repeatedly refuse to join Mumble-required lobbies. These are:

Level 0 - 30 minutes

Level 1 - 60 minutes

Level 2 - 4 hours

Level 3 - 12 hours

Level 4 - 2 days

Level 5+ - 7 days

This may be better explained with an example:

Player starts at Mumble punishment level 0

Player joins Mumble-required lobby but doesn't join Mumble

End of game, player is banned from Mumble-required lobbies for 30 minutes, and Mumble punishment level is increased by 1 (to 1)

30 minutes passes

Player joins Mumble-required lobby but doesn't join Mumble

End of game, player is banned from Mumble-required lobbies for 1 hour and Mumble punishment level is increased by 1 (to 2)

1 hour passes

Player plays 5 Mumble-required lobbies and joins Mumble in each

Player punishment level is reduced by 1 (to 1)

The Once and Future King, Computer, ninjaMooCow and 13 others like this

As a lot of you may know, TF2C has been under non-stop DDoS attacks the last week. This has affected more than just the site, but also has disrupted the community. In order to protect us from these cowardly attacks, we have now upgraded all of our services:

Main website (CloudFlare)

Forums (CloudFlare)

Mumble

in-game rep system

Connection status

We’re confident that these new measures will protect us from further attacks.

For a short time following this post, you may experience a few issues such as the connection status after launch, and manually reppin in-game. These are DNS issues, and we have a solution here, located under “Clearing DNS cache”.

We would like to thank you again for the community's ongoing support of TF2Center. The staff look forward to future lobbies with you all!

░░░░░███████ ]▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ Bob is building an army.▂▄▅█████████▅▄▃▂ \☻ This tank & Bob are against shitty ban requestsIl███████████████████]... ▌\︻╦╤─ Will you help Bob?◥⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙◤.... / \ Or will Bob flatten you for shit posting in the ban forum?

Nominated and won the award for best shitpost of 2016, and it's only January 1st.

Catman1900 was assigned to scout in a 6s lobby and I only see him play spy and engineer the whole time. But now I saw that he also played heavy. It should be one class and one class only. Perhaps two if needed.

Note: You need to have RCON access to the server to be able to do this

So, there is someone in your server who is hacking, and changing his name to be the same as others so that he can't be kicked? There is a relatively easy way to solve this, provided that you have rcon access to the server.

Here's what you need to do:

- Open up the TF2 console and type 'rcon_password [Your RCON Password]'

- Type 'rcon status'. This will show you the status screen as the server views it.

- Look for where the two people with same name are. Note down their steam ids, which begin with STEAM_.

- Wait till the hacker changes his name to someone else's names. Repeat the steps again command again and look for the steam ID that matches one of the ones that you recorded before, as a person with the copied name. This will be the hacker.

- Type this into the console: 'rcon banid [STEAMID];rcon kickid [STEAMID]' where steamid is the steam id of the hacker.

A large community (e.g. Lotus, UKCS etc) - this is not always the case. Admins are allowed to ban people who have been banned for bad behaviour on other servers as long as there is sufficent evidence.

You have less than 300 hours played on TF2

Your profile is private and it's your first time logging in (you may set your profile back to private once you have logged in)

You have an adblocker enabled. Sometimes adblockers/firewalls/internet security programs interfere with the site's functions.

Note: we are working on a system which tells you if you are banned and why. This will hopefully be implemented soon.

Known bugs with the login system:

Sometimes the hours of a profile that was previously private do not download to the database correctly and so the hours played is shown as 0, thus not allowing users to log in. We are working to fix this issue.

You may attempt to login and you will be redirected to a blank page after steam login. This can be caused by outdated session cookies which generally occurs after an update to TF2Center has been deployed. Delete your cookies and try again. Current workaround: Ensure you have set a personalized URL for your steam profile. Thanks to Oye Beto for discovering this fix.

If you think you are experiencing a bug then post here and we will manually verify your account and add it to the database.

He kicked me for offclassing as sniper on a offclass enabaled lobby,after we won that round i switched back to scout and we won another round.He then proceeded to kick me from the lobby without any reason

For offclass trolling and keeping us busy on the forums with ban requests. Should you not get the message, here it is, loud and clear: we are tired of you fuckers. People like you make us look bad. This is your final warning, after that: permaban for all of you.

After months in development, the TF2Center team are proud to announce that something NEW and MAJOR is in store for TF2Center and ready to be released within the coming week/s. Check out our promotional video to find out more!

A lot of people still wondering why they have issues with TF2C while using in-game Steam browser. Consider this as our official answer and spread this sacred knowledge among those who do not read this forum or just can't read at all.

We do not support Steam browser and will never do! This stripped down version of a browser was never designed to fully support comfortable Internet surfing. It doesn't support many contemporary technologies that TF2Center are using. So no complaints are accepted! Use it on your own risk and don't ask us to fix it.

We are happy to announce a new update to TF2Center - the Balancer Update™. This update adds several new features, but primarily adds a simple lobby balancer that can be enabled in the lobby create screen.

This new balancer is not the same as the one used to balanced Advanced Lobbies. It simply balances based on hours in the game, and amount of lobbies played instead of AL stars (votes) and TPR. Primarily, this is due to not everyone having an AL star, and TPR not being accurate enough for balancing high level players.

We have tested this update last week across several Lobbies and the results are looking very promising!

Creating balanced Lobbies

Creating balanced Lobbies is currently a donatoronly perk, however, anyone can play in a balanced Lobby.

Introduction
So you want to play Competitive TF2. What defines lower division players from pub players
is their ability to communicate in Mumble or Teamspeak. One of the defining characteristics
of a player that goes on to higher level is if they can be "pro" in comms. It's not just
about damage per second, hats and L33t frags.

I have been working for the past year with some newer teams that have players with zero comp experience. Even though they are steel level right now, they comm like high gold or plat. Anyone with any level of skills can comm like a pro. I personally have "hired" players trying out that are less skillful based on their comms, and I have also cut players or not given them the position after a tryout because of poor comm skills. Keep in mind that even the worst player that can give the comm on where the combo is and can be responsible for the great sniper on that team to have superhuman awareness. The point is, practice and become pro at comms!

Mumble tips:
1. Don't use voice activation. Use push to talk (PTT)
2. Bind PTT to a mouse button on the side or in a place that you can use while you play.
3. If you wait to enter mumble until the match starts, it will give you a prefix (e.g. "SNIPER:")
and switch you to the right channel.
4. Listen to your voice in mumble setup. Make sure it is clear and loud enough / not fuzzy-loud.
5. Invest in a headset. Otherwise echos of voices can be very distracting.
6. Consider investing in a GOOD headset. Cheap ones break, and in the end cost more to replace.
7. Learn your medic's voice before the game starts. Key in on that.

8. If there happens to be a rare female in mumble, do not feel like you need to point out her physical attributes or mention genitalia. Just treat her like another player, which she is.

Comm tips:

0. Know the locations, know the map. Your team will appreciate clear locational comms. "They used uber ON HILL."
1. When it comes to match time, only say match comms. Talk about hats and music at warm-up or halftime.
2. In many cases, people don't recognize your voice. Speak about yourself in 3rd person.
For example, "Med, Heavy needs heals."
3. Fight the urge to voice your disappointment at dying. If your death is important
(maybe if you are a medic) try saying "I'm medic and I'm down" in a lobby or "I'm down"
if your team knows your voice. No need to die cursing like you died IRL. This is not Theater.
4. If you comm like a pro, don't think that people will pick on your pre-teen squeaky voice.
People appreciate players for what they say and when they say it, not how old they sound.
5. Fight the urge to hold the PTT down. (clack clack clack keyboard)
6. Don't call players down for other players (e.g. your sniper) unless he is not in mumble.
Calling player down is a bit of a treat for the fragger, let them say it. Don't clutter.
7. Don't call players down before they are. Sometimes even good players feel like they can
will a player to die. They can't.
8. More on clutter. Certain classes need to talk more (spys) , certain classes
(e.g. heavies) live and die based on comms (like where the sniper is sighted.) You laughing
in mumble may have just killed your med.
9. Obnoxious fans in the background? live under a train? Think about not talking much.
10. Learn the location names in a map. There are websites with this, or you can just learn by
playing. The most annoying comm "error" that I hear are people saying "sniper." and then I
need to say, "where". If he shot you, you know. Help your team avenge you.
11. Make it a goal to talk quickly and not use air-time. For example, even the "med down" vs.
"medic down lol!" can help other calls get through.
12. Don't know location names? Instead of calling "Sniper in Books" maybe call "Sniper top right".
13. Sometimes, don't feel bad stating "match comms" at the beginning of a match to remind your
teammates that this is not a frat party. Serious business.

14. Spys: If you are a good spy you are giving a good stream of intel. Make it a point to NEVER MISS A MEDIGUN CHANGE. It is my opinion that the most important comm you will ever hear out of a spy's mouth is "they are now running kritz."

15. All players, keep an eye on the scoreboard especially if you have a few seconds of downtime as you respawn. Your team should always know if the other team is down a significant amount of players or otherwise. Also during downtime, watch for if the other team got spawns.

Good Calling Form:
Someone, likely your medic, will be doing most of the talking. This is "calling." Calling is
an art and probably no guide can do it justice.
Don't clutter, but also don't be afraid to say important things like "our sentry is down"
or "teleporter not safe", that sniper is destroying us please focus, etc.

Everyone on the team may be responsible for the following calls:

* (class) down. "Med down." - Most good medics measure the other medic's uber off of this call.
"Spy down." - Pyros in Highlander will often roam for a while on this call.
* Med dropped - Medic had uber/kritz and died with it. A very good thing and an advantage.
* (class) lit. (Avoid this, call out damage numbers if possible)
(class) hurt. (Avoid this, call out damage numbers if possible)
(class) destroyed. (Avoid this, call out damage numbers if possible)
(class) headshot.
(class) 10 health.

(class) took (damage) "medic took 60"
(class) 173 off. - this lets your teammates finish off damaged opponents. Prioritizing fire is deadly.
remember that an opponent with 1 health shoots the same rockets. Finish them.
* (class) <location>. e.g. "Demo at our spawn."
* Medic called. - this means medic said "I am ready!" and is probably ready to uber. Your team may
choose to play more passively or strive to get a pick now.
* Jarate on cart.
* Uber at <location>
kritz at <location>
They used at <location>
"Uber on point" - lets your teammates clear and measure the time before re-engaging
* Focus <class> - lets you and hopefully a few teammates focus fire on a key player getting them down fast.
* Heavy, sandvitch.
* Sniper <location> - allows your sniper or flanks to counter. Allows other classes to roll-out differently
based on sightlines - what the sniper can see from there.
* Spy <location> - obvious
* Medic where are you? - All medics want more players around him = more protection.

* Medic, where are heals? - same as above
* Demo where are you? - From the medic. Medic is ready to uber and/or kritz. come get frags!
* Heals at <location> - From the medic. Find the medic, protect, get ubers, etc.

* They wiped.

* We wiped.

* They are only 4 up.

* We are only 4 up, don't bleed.

* They just got spawns

One Final Note

Your tone is also important. Try to keep the volume down, excitement out of it. The best teams have suprisingly low-key comms during important matches. You may be suprised to hear very little comms, very calm and low-key voices, etc. As you advance in your comm skills, try to focus on what you don't say and trying not to clutter the comms for your teammates.

I've read the entire thread and very much dislike this idea. I know you've been toying with this idea for months and I love the positive changes being made to this site as new features are being rolled out. However, there doesn't seem to be much difference between an advanced lobby and a casual lobby other than the atmosphere and expectations of the players. Manual restrictions can already be set in casual lobbies (i.e. minimum 50 lobbies) and if you want to ban specific players as the lobby leader, it is very easy to do so. I think the only thing missing is the ability to halt game auto start until the lobby leader is ready to start the game (rather than the ready up auto start system currently in place). As a lobby leader myself, I typically just reserve my scout slot ahead of time and sit in spectator to prevent the auto start from happening so that I have time to kick the unwanted players. It's currently not a big issue as that is an easy workaround.

A couple other issues I'd like to address given your current ideas, and then I'll suggest a different system of my own for advanced lobbies:

1. Creating a separate group for elite or advanced players is no different than creating an in-house pug group or IRC pug channel. No value is being added here by creating an Advanced Lobbies group, and integrating this system into the site adds no value. Most in-house pug groups are run separately (see "Invite Pugs" steam group for ESEA-IM+ level players only here: http://steamcommunit...oups/InvitePugs ) and if you really wanted to do this in TF2Center you could do it right now by reserving all slots and creating a separate steam group.

2. Creating a set start time for pugs is ridiculous and would only serve to reduce the number of pugs run on a daily basis. It's better to do it the same way scrims are currently done -- people hop into a channel (or lobby) and advertise the game. First come, first served. Over time the players will begin to set the times for ALs on their own, naturally and organically. In practice, teams tend to show up to start scrims at X time and now all teams begin showing up at that time. This free system means that players can create ALs whenever they'd like and can encourage their friends to show up to get games started faster. They're not constricted by the system to show up at X time.

3. Limiting ability to play games by league or division excludes skilled players who aren't in a league, and this means that you'll have to manually manage the group (an issue for growth). Let the players decide who to include or not include through social pressure. Also known as "toxic communities", this social pressure discourages lower leveled players from playing. You see this in current IRC pug systems, other comp games, and in-house pug groups where new players are bullied out. You might argue that this sucks for new players, but that's why these circle jerks form. Everyone is technically welcome to show up to TF2mix or PUG.NA but they're scared to join for fear of being yelled at or being the worst player in the pug. This fear is natural and is a positive way to weed out players that you guys are talking about as "not welcome" for being unskilled. Captaining systems work for the same reasons. In the current casual lobby system, you can simply manually ban out these players that aren't welcome.

I really don't think that advanced lobbies in the way that was suggested earlier in this thread are adding value to the current casual lobby system. I instead would like to support the matchmaking system suggested earlier. Add up as a class and use a hidden ELO system to make games. Although this would require some extra dev work, it would have positive benefits:

1. Prevent team stacking. This in itself would start more games faster, as players tend to avoid joining a game when they see a stacked team on the other side. It would also provide for a more balanced gaming experience with less rolls.

2. It would sort those advanced players into more advanced games, giving you what you ultimately want which is a game against equally skilled players. This supports advanced players while avoiding the elitist mindset that scares away new players. It would also keep unskilled players out of the advanced games. Unskilled players would get matched up against other unskilled players and the system wouldn't label them outright as "casual" or "new". These labels only discourage new players.

3. It does not give players the idea that casual lobbies are for "dicking around" and off classing.

5. No steam groups or extra management required. Bans and other punishments can be given automatically according to your predefined standards.

6. It is CLEARLY different than casual lobbies and players of ALL skill levels would want to use the system, especially after ranks are created. This rewards players with more prestigious ranks, encourages skilled gameplay and improvement, and keeps the community together as one whole piece rather than two separate pieces.

7. It doesn't fall prey to the problem discussed earlier which is that as the "elitist group" gets larger, it dilutes the skill level of the group. These "advanced groups" tend to grow over time as players do not want to wait to start games. Over time the skill level of these groups drops and the highest level players in the group become discouraged from playing in the pug. This creates a vicious cycle. A matchmaking system avoids this problem because as the best player in the matchmaking queue you may get matched up against lower level players from time to time but you'll ultimately get matched against the best player possible each time you queue up.

The TF2Center dev team has some amazing talent and has already created a fantastic product. Learn from the lessons of the past and do not recreate the same mistakes that have been made by the TF2 community in previous years by making yet another invite-only group. You guys have the talent to create something truly unique here.

Ultimately a matchmaking system is what the community needs. Look to CS:GO as a model. Eventually the serious players will immediately go to click on "play matchmaking" and the casual players or players who want to play with friends or goof off can create their casual lobbies.

Mother Tereza, The Once and Future King, Computer and 7 others like this